# Proper handling query with same words

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 5, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935 "2025-06-05T21:13:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![marc21](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/marc21/32/143543_2.png) [@marc21](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/marc21)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935/1 "2025-06-05T21:13:39Z")

</div>

Hello guys,

what’s the best way to handle a use case where a query should return documents that contain at least N instances of the specified words?

For example, suppose my database contains the following phrases:

"to be or not to be"  
"to be human"

When I search for _"to be"_, Elasticsearch correctly returns both phrases. However, if I search for _"to be to be"_, **I want only the first phrase to match** - since it contains "to be" twice, as requested in query - ES by default returns both phrases since it treats "to be to be" query equally to just "to be".

In other words, how can I make word frequency in the query affect the search results?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tortoise](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/tortoise/32/147587_2.png) [@Tortoise](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tortoise)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 5:04am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935/2 "2025-06-06T05:04:42Z")

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Hello @marc21

Welcome to the community.

```auto
POST test-index/_doc
{
    "id" : 1,
    "message" : "to be or not to be"

}

POST test-index/_doc
{
    "id" : 2,
    "message" : "to be human"

}

GET test-index/_search
{
    "size": 1,
    "track_total_hits": true,
    "query": {
        "match": {
          "message": "to be to be"
        }
    }
}

```

**Output :**

```auto
{
  "took": 1,
  "timed_out": false,
  "_shards": {
    "total": 1,
    "successful": 1,
    "skipped": 0,
    "failed": 0
  },
  "hits": {
    "total": {
      "value": 2,
      "relation": "eq"
    },
    "max_score": 0.9168171,
    "hits": [
      {
        "_index": "test-index",
        "_id": "QgqWQ5cBpIOblOt4qNbY",
        "_score": 0.9168171,
        "_source": {
          "id": 1,
          "message": "to be or not to be"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

```

As we see from above example the output returned is automatically sorted by **"\_score": 0.9168171**

If you are only interested in 1 record by using size=1 , it will always return you the best match for your query. As we have enabled **"track\_total\_hits": true** this will also give the total count of matching documents from which the top result with highest \_score will be displayed as size=1

Thanks!!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![marc21](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/marc21/32/143543_2.png) [@marc21](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/marc21)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 7:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935/3 "2025-06-06T07:19:09Z")

</div>

Thank you for quick response. Unfortunately I cannot use `_score` sorting - we are using alphabetical sorting ☹

Also when I search for "to be to be to be" for previous dataset I want no matching result at all - hits total should be 0.

"be" - total hits `2`  
"to be" - total hits `2`  
"be be" - total hits `1`  
"to be to be" - total hits `1`  
"to be to be to be" - total hits `0`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![marc21](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/marc21/32/143543_2.png) [@marc21](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/marc21)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 8:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/proper-handling-query-with-same-words/378935/4 "2025-07-24T08:25:25Z")

</div>

Anyone? ☹